A display framework

Although the code that turns programs into both applets and applications produces valuable results, if used everywhere it becomes distracting and wastes paper. Instead, the following display framework will be used for the Swing examples in the rest of this book:

//: com:bruceeckel:swing:Console.java
// Tool for running Swing demos from the
// console, both applets and JFrames.
package com.bruceeckel.swing;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class Console {
  // Create a title string from the class name:
  public static String title(Object o) {
    String t = o.getClass().toString();
    // Remove the word "class":
    if(t.indexOf("class") != -1)
      t = t.substring(6);
    return t;
  }
  public static void
  run(JFrame frame, int width, int height) {
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(width, height);
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
  public static void
  run(JApplet applet, int width, int height) {
    JFrame frame = new JFrame(title(applet));
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.getContentPane().add(applet);
    frame.setSize(width, height);
    applet.init();
    applet.start();
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
  public static void
  run(JPanel panel, int width, int height) {
    JFrame frame = new JFrame(title(panel));
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.getContentPane().add(panel);
    frame.setSize(width, height);
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
} ///:~

This is a tool you may want to use yourself, so it’s placed in the library com.bruceeckel.swing. The Console class consists entirely of static methods. The first is used to extract the class name (using RTTI) from any object and to remove the word “class,” which is typically prepended by getClass( ). This uses the String methods indexOf( ) to determine whether the word “class” is there, and substring( ) to produce the new string without “class” or the trailing space. This name is used to label the window that is displayed by the run( ) methods.

setDefaultCloseOperation( ) causes a JFrame to exit a program when that JFrame is closed. The default behavior is to do nothing, so if you don’t call setDefaultCloseOperation( ) or write the equivalent code for your JFrame, the application won’t close.

The run( ) method is overloaded to work with JApplets, JPanels, and JFrames. Note that only if it’s a JApplet are init( ) and start( ) called.

Now any applet can be run from the console by creating a main( ) containing a line like this:

Console.run(new MyClass(), 500, 300);

in which the last two arguments are the display width and height. Here’s Applet1c.java modified to use Console:

//: c14:Applet1d.java
// Console runs applets from the command line.
// <applet code=Applet1d width=100 height=50></applet>
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import com.bruceeckel.swing.*;

public class Applet1d extends JApplet {
  public void init() {
    getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Applet!"));
  }
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Console.run(new Applet1d(), 100, 50);
  }
} ///:~

This allows the elimination of repeated code while providing the greatest flexibility in running the examples.

Thinking in Java
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